Rearview
by lembas7
Summary: When Sam and Dean put a town in their rearview mirror, they rarely go back. But there's an exception to every rule . . . Follows 'Signs And Warnings'. Supernatural, StargateSG1 crossover
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Characters and premise of 'Supernatural' belong to Eric Kripke et al. 'Stargate: SG-1' characters and premise property of someone else I don't know. They don't know me either. Suffice to say, the only green you'll see here is the word I just spelled.

**A/N:** Sequel to 'Signs And Warnings'. Won't make much sense without that, but you're always welcome to try. Set between 'What Is And What Should Never Be', and 'All Hell Breaks Loose, Part I.' Only AU because Kripke's canon is that aliens do not, cannot, and will not exist in the SPN universe. I am not changing canon. Just . . . adding a little something.

**Summary:** When Sam and Dean put a town in their rearview mirror, they rarely go back. But there's an exception to every rule . . . follows 'Signs And Warnings'

* * *

REARVIEW

_Dirt. Dirt. Blood._ Friggin' djinn. _Damn, that's a big tear._ He _liked_ those jeans. _What the hell is that?_

Squinting at the unknown stain, Dean risked touching it, and grimaced at the feel of crusty flannel. Two seconds later the shirt was lying on top of the 'unidentifiable' pile. The ripped pants got set to the side with other torn clothes.

_Tinkle._

"Got 'em!"

The laundromat door slammed into its frame, bell still clanging softly.

Dean grinned at the extra roll of quarters his brother held aloft. "Nice." They were both down to their last sets of publicly acceptable clothes; the laundry run was almost dangerously overdue.

"And I got the good stuff, too." Extra-powerful bleach, for colors, _thump_ed onto the top of a closed washing machine. Shaking long hair from his eyes, Sam flipped the lid and started filling the washer, deftly balancing the load of denim and pilfered motel towels. "Which pile is this?"

Dean looked over from where his brother's duffle had thrown up across three hard, plastic seats. _T-shirts, boxer-briefs, socks._ And no obvious stains in sight, so – "Regular."

Fifteen minutes later six washers were running, the sound of swirling water and clothes filling the otherwise-empty laundromat. Few people were up bright and early on a Tuesday morning to keep track of the rinse cycle.

Sam threw himself into one of the chairs with a contented sigh. _Good thing they're bolted to the floor._ But his brother had slept the night through undisturbed by nightmares for once, which was reason one to celebrate. Reason two was the heady sunshine streaming in through the laundromat's glass front, signaling an end to the crappy weather plaguing Bone Gap, IL.

Sam held out a needle. "Race you?"

Dean took a good look at the pile – more rips and tears than he was used to, but he'd spent the last four years minus Sam's giant-sized clothes, so maybe it just looked like more. "Usual rules?" Winner chosen by number and quality of garments mended. What with all their practice on skin and cloth, the Winchester brothers' stitches were a fine rival for any MD's, so it really came down to who was faster.

"Yep. Winner gets to pick the next five meal stops," his brother bargained.

Dean dropped to hard plastic, taking the needle from Sam's fingers. "You're on."

For a few long minutes, the only noise was the _swish_ of the washers and the quiet sounds of concentration Sam didn't even know he made as needle dug into cloth. Dean was in the process of turning his second shirt inside-out to reattach part of the sleeve when the statement came.

"You never told me about MIT."

_Hell._

Too much to hope that the comment O'Neill had let slip would be ignored; his little brother was _tenacious._ And smart enough to put the pieces together; it was, after all, what they did.

But it was laundry day, a rare refuge of peace after hunting; the day after they'd counted all fingers and toes, and the only survival they were worried about was of their clothes. Sammy always got a free pass on the emo-crap on laundry day. "I never told Dad about it, either," Dean kept his reply neutral.

And because it was laundry day, Sam didn't blow up at the revelation. Just tied off his line of stitches and set the t-shirt aside. "Why?"

_Why do you think? _Dean punched needle through cotton with a little more force than necessary. "Woulda been a hassle."

But Sam knew that, after all – Stanford. "No, I mean, why did you go? I thought you were all about the hunt, man."

"I am." But of course his little brother was looking for more than that. _I really hate this crap._ Dean searched for the words. "It's just -" _I thought maybe I could have . . . more. _Something for himself.

Damned if he was going to dump that on Sammy.

"It helps on the hunt," he offered. _And that's not a total lie._

"The EMF-meter." Sam's eyes were thoughtful now.

Okay, Dean knew he'd been showing off a little to his brother, but that hadn't meant Sam's quick dismissal of something he'd done had hurt any less. "Right," Dean muttered. 'Cause if he didn't say anything, his little brother would be on it quicker than a dog on a bone, and whipping himself with guilt for something he couldn't change.

Denim met his fingers; Dean pulled a huge pair of jeans out of the pile. _Sammy's._ And so was the massive, straight tear stretching from four inches below the waistband all the way to the lower seat of the pants. _Huh?_ He hadn't stitched up a matching cut in his brother's skin, or seen any indication in Sam's smooth movements of bruises big enough to account for this kind of damage. "Dude. What the hell?"

"Ah." Pink rushed into Sam's face; blue-green eyes darted his way and then stayed fixed on the ragged hem he was putting to rights. "Yeah. Digging."

It took a minute for Dean to catch on. Laughter burst from his chest as he sank further into the uncomfortable plastic seat. "You _split your pants_?"

His brother stitched determinedly, voice defensive. "They're old."

"Right." Fingering the label, Dean took a good look, testing the weave against knowing fingers. "About a year old. Ancient." Although with the wear they put into them, a year _was_ pretty decrepit for Winchester clothing.

"Shut up," Sam growled, red under his tan with embarrassment.

_Not a chance._ Dean grinned, tone more demanding than inviting, in the way of older siblings planet-wide. "So, tell me, Sammy."

"You're falling behind," his brother retorted, clearly desperate for a change in topic.

A quick look, picking out different types of cloth from each finished pile, showed that he was trailing by one. _Son of a –_ "Not for long," Dean declared, attacking the tear.

"Big words."

The grin crept back, full of evil intent. "Not as big as -"

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

* * *

"Come on, come on!" Daniel muttered, panting in the 'Gateroom as the security guards raised their weapons, plastered against gray walls and all available – scanty – cover.

_Fwooom! Fwoooom!_

"Holy Hannah!" Sam gasped, as they dove out of the way of staff blasts winging through the wormhole.

_Come on, Jack, come on!_

Three figures, recognizable by their desert attire, stumbled through – Daniel hissed a breath out from between his teeth. _Tok'ra._ Jacob, Aldwin, and the unknown operative among Olokun's servants. All three skittered sideways to avoid passing over the Key of Solomon, at the older Carter's direction.

Then, the staff blasts stopped. _Jack, Teal'c, where are you?_

The screaming klaxons drowned out all sounds but the rippling of the event horizon; at his side, Daniel could feel Sam panting from their mad dash to the 'Gate on P3X-972.

Tell-tale ripples passed through the waving blue event horizon, just before three figures emerged. Two were wearing SGC green, and the third –

_They didn't._

The weapons aimed at the chocolate-skinned man, bedecked with gold and brightly-colored linen, told a different story.

"Shut the iris!" Jack yelled.

Between Jack and Teal'c, the man's eyes flashed white, a snarl erupting from the host's throat.

Daniel felt a headache blossom just behind his forehead. _Gods. They did._

With a drawn-out _snck_ of scraping metal, trinium snapped over the wormhole. A moment later, the connection was cut. And Jack was herding their prisoner off the ramp, surreptitiously keeping him away from the Key of Solomon. _Because anyone stuck there would be vaporized when we tried to dial out. _

Well, you couldn't have everything.

The Tok'ra advanced on the Goa'uld, and Daniel found himself relieved by their presence. It would be hard enough to subdue a System Lord, even one without a ribbon device or any of the other technological arsenal they wielded as easily as Daniel would a pen. At least now they had others who could counter the enhanced strength a symbiote gave to its host.

"Sir?" Sam stepped forward, wary eyes on Olokun.

"Carter," Jack grinned, Colonel-in-candystore routine going full-blast to cover the way his hands never left his P-90. "See if you can get a cell for our friend here. Keep him comfortable for awhile?"

A nod had her retreating from the 'Gateroom.

"We will be taking Olokun into custody," the unknown Tok'ra interrupted. "The High Council has many questions for him."

Fury built into a thunderhead on Jack's face, waiting to unleash a storm.

Daniel stepped closer. "Of course," he said smoothly, shooting Jack a _wait-for-it_ glare. "But in the meantime, there are several off-world teams scheduled to return to the SGC, and there are a few maintenance procedures scheduled for the 'Gateroom today. It may be awhile before we have an open time slot to dial out to Vorash."

The unknown operative's head nodded; Aldwin looked thwarted. Daniel didn't think he'd fooled General Carter at all, though. _At least we'll have some time to bargain with him for information._

Locked between two Tok'ra, Olokun's eyes flared white, voice reverberating around the converted silo as they brought out restraints to pin his arms. "Di'dak'dida, gonach!"

Daniel rolled his eyes.

Jack raised a brow.

The archaeologist waved a hand. "How dare you, filthy cur," he translated flippantly. _Close enough._

"Yadda yadda," Jack nodded. Aimed a perfunctory smile at the Tok'ra, raising his voice to a shout for the 'Gateroom surveillance. "Carter, we good?"

In the Control Room, blonde hair leant toward the microphone, Sam's voice even. "Level 16 is ready and waiting, sir."

The Colonel smirked, arm sweeping out in a gallant gesture. "After you."

* * *

Sun, insistently hot against his skin.

Sam shifted, leather creaking at his back, his stomach growling a complaint. _Hungry._ Lunch after laundry had been filling, but that was four hours ago now.

_Cedar Rapids Welcomes You!_

He inched forward, peeling his back from where it had sweat-glued to black leather. Autumn chilled the world resting just outside the Impala's sleek paint job, but the sun and the heater he had going were more than enough to have him uncomfortable. Sam readjusted his grip on the steering wheel and snuck a glance at the Impala's passenger seat, and the reason for the heater's low hum.

Dean had slept through their entrance to Iowa, and was still slumped against the window.

_Friggin' djinn._

It had shocked his brother to learn that he'd lost a day to the djinni's dreams; it had taken Sam that long to find out where the creature had secreted its victims in the fifty square miles of real estate his brother had been searching, after Dean had ended up hours overdue.

_How much blood did it take?_

They really didn't know. Enough to knock his stubborn brother on his _ass_, meaning Sam was driving for the foreseeable future. And he hadn't even had to fight about it.

Winning their impromptu clothes-repairing contest had a few side benefits.

Following I-380 West would take them clear through the state after leaving Cedar Rapids. It had been a month or two since they'd swung by this way, and they needed to check the post-office box they had here.

_Haven't heard from Bobby lately._ Not since the Trickster, but that wasn't unusual. Dean had insisted they stay well-clear of the Roadhouse since Meg, keeping off the radar of other hunters.

Sam swallowed, eyes following the shifting movement as his brother squirmed against ribbed leather, and settled.

"_What, you thought I didn't know you wanted to go to college? You were starry-eyed about that before you hit twelve, dude."_

Maybe the conversation they'd had over lunch had more to do with Dean's lapse into sleep than the blood loss.

_Sam kept quiet – this, like anything Dean gave up willingly, came out of nowhere. _

_"I knew what I wanted," his brother traced one finger along the diner's table in random patterns. "But you were fourteen, and -"_

_Sam sucked in a breath. _

_"No," green-gold met his, solid, swift, and certain. "Don't you think that I put it off for that, Sammy."_

_And he knew then that Dean was telling the truth. He didn't think he could bear it if his brother had put off his life like this just to raise him; and anger was quick to stir, reminding him that that should have been Dad's job. Not Dean's. _

_"You and Dad – d'you remember? The two of you were at each others' throats, man, there was _always_ static. Stubborn as hell, the both of you. And I knew if I left -" Dean swallowed a mouthful of iced tea. "Four years is a long time. If I left – there probably wouldn't be anything to come back to." _

_Sam frowned. "We wouldn't have killed each other, Dean."_

_A shrug lifted soft flannel; Dean kept his eyes on the diner's entrance. "You wouldn't have been family anymore, either." _

So he'd stayed long enough to see Sam go solo, no surprise there, and then found a way to do what he wanted. Everything he wanted – hunting, and learning better ways to build and blow things up.

What the hell could Sam say after that?

Instead, he'd stared, blown away a little. He'd never been without Dean – but sometimes he forgot how well his brother knew him.

Dean had dug into his food, which arrived with merciful timing, and Sam had stolen the keys out of the pocket of his leather jacket when Dean had gone to pay the bill.

Dean had practically raised him – and that, Sam suddenly remembered, included helping him with his homework through senior year. Dean had to have been a straight-A student to get accepted, hell, to get their father to let him _hunt_, but he'd never let a word slip.

Sometimes, he couldn't decide whether he wanted to buy Dean a beer to celebrate getting into MIT, or _strangle_ his brother for getting a stone's throw away from graduating without _saying anything._

Sam checked the passenger seat again, and kept his speed down as he passed through the suburbs bordering the main section of Cedar Rapids. They were maybe five minutes from the Post Office, and he wanted his brother to sleep for as long as possible.

Dean made it so easy to forget the intelligence that burned just behind green eyes. Part of it was the same way Sam slouched in layers, minimizing his height, hiding the muscle of their life from easy notice. The hunter that was underestimated had an automatic advantage. _But the other part . . . _The other part, near as he could figure, was just Dean. _Not that that's saying much._ Every time he thought he'd figured his brother out, Dean turned around and flabbergasted him some new way.

The revelation at Lake Manitoc, months and months ago, put things he'd always known into perspective. Sam would explode when he stressed out – build up and lash out and then, he'd be done. Dean, on the other hand, shut down hard and fast and completely. Didn't give away any of his secrets, anything close to his heart, as ammunition for others to use against him later.

Sam had been eight when he'd asked Dean why he hadn't told his class about his birthday, so they could celebrate. _"If no one knows,"_ Dean had finally answered, _"then they can't forget about it."_

Pulling into the empty parking lot, Sam checked his watch. The Post Office wouldn't be closing for another ten minutes or so, but they were still cutting it close.

He didn't want to do it, but Sam reached out anyway, shaking Dean's shoulder gently. Post Offices were notorious for hanging posters of the FBI's Most Wanted inside. He wasn't about to leave his brother, sleeping and defenseless, right in front of one waiting to be recognized. "Dean. Hey. Wake up."

"Whazzit?" came the bleary mumble.

"We're here," Sam nodded toward the red-brick building, old and inconspicuously squished between a small deli and a tree-laden street corner.

A sound somewhere between a snuffle and a grunt escaped his brother; Dean just slouched further down against the leather, eyes bleary but awake. _At least he knows he can't go in._

"Be right back," Sam offered, getting a lazy wave in return. Irritating, and comfortingly normal for them. _He's feeling better. _

There was a hefty pile waiting for them – half of it seemed to be long-expired notices about local events, coupons and other junk, but he just hauled the pounds of paper out of the box situated at shin-height, and slid out the door again. _Find a motel, check the mail._ He'd seen a credit-card application or two that it would be worth their while to send out while they were in town.

Cool wind shivered over Sam's skin as he left, blowing overlong strands into his eyes. The Impala's door creaked open; Dean lifted his head from its resting place against the window, grabbing for the mail as Sam plunked it onto the bench-seat.

"Anything fun?"

"Credit card applications, I think. I didn't really look." The Impala purred to life as he twisted the key. _And three, two, one –_

Dean shifted straighter in his seat, sifting through with interest a bright gleam in green eyes. "October-fest, coupla weeks ago."

"Hmmm." Sam's eyes shifted, between scanning road and mirrors, to where his brother was sorting the stacks of paper. As usual, Dean was dumping the junk mail in Sam's pile. "Oh, come on."

"You like reading about that local stuff," Dean tried to excuse it. "Huh. Here's one for both of us. Looks . . . kinda official. No return address."

_What the hell? _Thick white envelope, with prepaid postage in the place of stamps, and fat with whatever was in it. Over the faint strains of Styx's '_Renegade,_' Dean kept sorting. _Okay. If I follow this back to 380 we can probably find a motel. _

For being so close to the evening rush hour, it was surprisingly easy to slip back onto the highway and scout out a place to stay. So close to the city, there were only chain hotels, pricier – nicer – than the dives they usually found. And they would get unlimited hot water and water pressure, for once. Sam felt a grin pull at one side of his face as he slid the car into a space in front of a Ramada Inn. _I think I can live with it._

"I'll go get us a . . . Dean?"

His brother was holding an envelope in each hand, with an expression that said he was waiting for them to go off. The cream-colored letter extended toward him. "You got a letter from Stanford."

_What?_ The paper was rich and thick against the pads of his fingers. Sam shifted against the Impala's seat, staring at the seal in the upper-left corner. "This isn't the address they have for me."

"I know," Dean frowned. "It's not the one I gave MIT, either." The return address for the pale envelope in a white-knuckled grip flashed his way.

Wide blue-green locked on green-gold; then the sound of ripping filled the Impala as both brothers shredded through the envelopes to the messages beneath. "Holy -"

"Does that say what this says?" Sam gulped, scanning the neat type; the signature that was _definitely_ not a stamp gracing the bottom. He started to read aloud. "Dear Mr. Winchester, we are pleased to inform you that in light of recent information received by the University, your scholarship status has been reactivated -"

"- space for you has been reserved indefinitely, until such time you are able to return and complete your education," Dean finished, reading from his own letter. Awe coated each word in precious, perilous hope.

"Information?" The skin on his forehead crinkled. "What information?"

Even the hope couldn't keep sudden seriousness from Dean's face. "C'mon. Let's get a room, look this over someplace with a table. In contrast to the three pieces of paper in Sam's letter, Dean's was thick with almost a dozen sheets.

Sam swallowed. _What the hell's going on?_ "Yeah."

* * *

"The time-travel device has been destroyed." Jacob/Selmac leant against the tiny table in the senior VIP quarters of the SGC. _Thank God. _

Aldwin frowned, though his symbiote, Wotan, remained silent as ever.

Marsil's head jerked up, spine snapping straight from where the deep-cover operative had been slumped against the maroon bedspread. "What? How?"

Selmac took over, reverberating Jacob's voice. "Colonel O'Neill," he said dryly. Looking out from the back of his eyes, Jacob echoed the sentiment. _'That really does explain it.'_ Even to those with less than an hour's exposure to SG-1, like the operatives in front of him who had been undercover for many decades within the Goa'uld's forces.

Tension thrummed through Tiernan's body, Marsil's thoughts tightening his host's muscles. _'They have been on assignment far too long,'_ Selmac whispered. Silently, Jacob agreed. Too long for the newly-released operative to feel secure anywhere that was not the heart of the Tok'ra base.

"I see," Tiernan finally sighed, relaxing as Marsil retreated. "And Lord Olokun?"

_Lord?_ Jacob kept his frown hidden. It made sense that symbiote and host would have made sure they could not be caught out by a simple slip of the tongue; they would have made every nuance of their false life habit. But they were out, now. _How long will it take habit to break?_

"He will remain in our custody," Aldwin asserted. Arms folded across the desert garb of Vorash, he was propping up the wall just inside the steel door to the quarters they had appropriated.

"The SGC will have some objection to that," Jacob pointed out.

Aldwin scoffed. "They are questioning him even now, Jacob. And the High Council will treat with him for information we could not recover."

A wince passed through brown eyes; but no other expression showed on Tiernan's pale face.

Jacob mentally stepped back, head dipping; Selmac raised their eyes to meet the scientist's gaze. "Of course," their voice rumbled. "But the issue remains, and the question of what will happen to the host -"

"The host is no more than a shell."

They turned, Selmac's shock echoed in Jacob's mind. "What?"

Tiernan had spoken harshly, the flush of something – anger? fear? – high on his face, but Marsil eased into control with barely a blink. "I spoke with him, once. The host is more thoroughly broken than any I have seen."

"You say he is beyond saving?" Even Aldwin looked horrified; it was not their way.

'_He can't mean that,'_ Jacob protested. _'Traumatized or not, the host is still human. Still alive!'_

"In that case, leaving him with the Tau'ri should not provoke much opposition on the High Council," Selmac responded instead.

'_Separate host and symbiote, after -'_ The tingle of a shared idea started far back in Jacob's mind, from the place Selmac had blended their thoughts.

"What?" Confusion flicked through blue eyes as Aldwin moved two steps into the middle of the room. "We have none who could speak with Olokun once removed from his host."

"There would be little of use gleaned from the host once free of Olokun," Tiernan/Marsil interjected.

Indignation burned slow and hot in Jacob, slipping to his symbiote. "The host has a name." Selmac kept their voice quiet, reproving. _We don't know it, but he has one._

The dark eyes that turned to theirs showed no remorse. Marsil's shoulders, still clad in the white-and-gold raiment of Olokun's servants, shrugged. "He has long since forgotten it."

It was almost as if he was hinting that they leave the host to Olokun's decidedly lacking mercy. Indignation turned to outrage – Jacob smothered it, letting Selmac keep control. "Nonetheless, I doubt the Tau'ri would be willing to concede to let the host remain with Olokun. And the High Council will not sanction upon the host the measures needed to force the symbiote to speak."

If the information were desperately needed, the memory device would be used – but such was not the case. Unless –

"Olokun truly had no knowledge of the time-travel device?" Selmac demanded, picking up on the thought.

Marsil shook his head, black bangs drifting over his forehead. "None."

_Good._ Their sigh of relief went unnoticed in the silent room; Jacob took control once again. "Then I will inform General Hammond of our decision, and we will request the SGC's help in removing Olokun from his host."

"The Tau'ri have a method capable of successfully separating symbiote and host?" Aldwin didn't even bother to hide his surprise.

Memory of the power of the words flung at them by two brothers flooded Jacob, augmented by Selmac's own sensation of separation. A threat they hadn't known of – the SGC hadn't known of – until that strange _incident_ a few months ago. George still wouldn't give him the details, only a smile and a shrug that said _you know how it goes._ They would need Dr. Jackson's help. "That's what we're going to find out," Jacob muttered.


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't like it."

Cross-legged on one of the room's two queens, Sam blinked incredulously at him. "Why not?"

Dean eyed the papers, neatly ordered and spread across the green-white bedspread. _Such a control freak._ Papers from Stanford, cheerily accepting his brother back again whenever the opportunity arose. Papers from MIT, a little more complicated because of murder charges and his supposed death, essentially saying the same thing.

And the third envelope, with papers that explained the two academic institutions' sudden change in attitude toward the Winchester brothers. From the _White House._

At the edge of his own bed, Dean picked up these last, reading them again. "Well, for one thing, I don't think anyone's told Henriksen."

"Huh?"

Dean jabbed at the date on the official, Presidential pardons issued for the both of them, formally – _legally –_ clearing their names. "This is about a month before Milwaukee."

The mattress, new for once, didn't creak as his brother shifted forward. Long fingers appropriated the sheets in his grasp, blue-green fixed in on the date and mentally matching it up against the 'bank-job'. _I hate skinwalkers._

"Hnnn." A curl of wrinkles formed between Sam's brows.

They'd snuck their way into Cheyenne after the disaster with the bank-robbing shapeshifter, but there had been signs that the FBI was searching since then. _Wanted posters, television notices . . . _not often enough to throw them into a panic, but enough to show the Winchesters that Agent Henriksen wasn't giving up any time soon. "Yeah."

_Too much power._ Nevermind that they'd had to, nevermind that it had been killing people – tangling with the facility under Cheyenne Mountain was starting to prove one of the worst things they'd done so far, Milwaukee friggin' included. Thinking of how easily they had pulled these strings made a chill take up residence in Dean's spine.

_Dunno if they're trying to buy us off or prove a point – but I got the message, thanks._ The Winchesters couldn't afford to piss off the people under the Mountain. If he thought it would do any good, they'd never come back to Cedar Rapids and he'd change his cell phone number this minute. But the President's signature on those pardons told him there wouldn't be a place they could run that would be far enough away from this. _They know who we are._

Son of a bitch.

Sam shifted again, unfolding from his crouch to snag their laptop off the bedside table. "I wonder if we still come up on the FBI's Most Wanted lists."

_I'd bet on it. _The sound of Sam's stomach growling loud enough to be heard across the room decided him. Dean snagged his coat from the back of one of the room's two chairs, smirking a little at the embarrassed flush on his brother's cheeks. "Let's get some food first."

* * *

Jack took a good look at the computer print-out the archaeologist was holding. _What, no incense or funky robes? _"And you're just gonna . . . read. You think it'll work?"

Daniel shrugged in his blue BDU jacket, pushing round lenses up. "Unless you have to be ordained to perform an exorcism, yeah. It should work."

"Ordained?" Jack couldn't figure out how that word was supposed to come out, so he settled on sarcasm. Thought of spiked and shaggy hair, ripped jeans, and identical expressions of stubbornness. Grinned. _Yeah, right. _"Somehow, I think we'll be fine." Clapped his hands, rocking a moment on the balls of his feet. "Ready?"

A sigh and a nod, as Daniel stood from behind his desk, eyes flicking through the office for anything he might need. At the door, Jack whistled tunelessly, waiting for the archaeologist to shrug into his BDU jacket. Flicking the lights and shutting the door, Daniel stepped to his side as Jack meandered down the corridor. "You head down to the holding cell – I'll go get Jacob."

"What? No!" Daniel protested.

_Now what?_ "He wants to see it."

"Words aren't like a gun," Daniel sputtered, blue eyes wide. "I can't just aim them and not hit anyone else. We don't know _what's_ going to happen. They can't be in the same room. I don't even know if they can watch over a video feed – just hearing the words might be enough. Or seeing the ritual."

And the one thing they didn't want to do was accidentally remove the Tok'ra ambassador to Earth from its host.

Great. Carter's dad was just going to _love_ this. "So do you want to tell him, or shall I?" Jack clapped his hands together, absently rubbing his palms and trying not to grimace.

"I've got to go prepare for the exorcism," the archaeologist responded immediately, face perfectly straight, all butter-wouldn't-melt innocence and wicked laughter hiding in blue eyes.

"Right. Great. Fantastic."

Which was Jacob's estimation.

"The High Council -" Selmac started, voice reverberating in the VIP room.

"- doesn't want to lose its ambassador," Jack cut in. Jacob at least understood where he was coming from, but his symbiote was insisting. _Oldest and most wise of the Tok'ra. Most pig-headed, too. _"Look, we'll record it for you, dub out the sound, and release that to the High Council if there are no negative aftereffects. But we can't let you watch during the exorcism. It's too dangerous."

And that was, more or less, that.

Jack managed to escape before Aldwin and the other Tok'ra – Tiernan? – made their way back from the Commissary. _With any luck, this'll be over and done with before they even find out about it._

Jack rocked on his feet, toe to heel to toe, waiting for the elevator, keeping a ruthless control on the rising excitement inside. When the car arrived, it was empty. _If this works . . . _

If it worked, then they had a weapon against the Goa'uld that even the Tok'ra hadn't anticipated. It might be as dangerous to the Jaffa as blended hosts, but they could work around that – and the possibilities were _endless._ Broadcasting of a looping recording of the rite before they went through the 'Gate, having something to finally free hosts without the dangerous surgery that made the Doc's lips go tight when they demanded she perform it . . . _Oh yeah._

The holding cells were only a few corridors away from the elevator bank; Jack's steps were light on the way there. The one in question was easily identified; Carter was muttering with Daniel not far from the four SF's ringing the heavily-barred door.

"Sir," the astrophysicist spotted him first, head coming up.

"Carter," he acknowledged. Jack eyed the SF's. _Might want to get more down here._

"General Hammond will be here in a moment," she filled in. "Teal'c's in there now, getting him ready."

"Tying him up," the archaeologist corrected absently, still poring over the ritual.

Jack flapped a hand, catching the low, familiar cadence of Latin as Daniel played with meter. "Ah, details."

Approaching footsteps ringing against concrete pulled his attention from the snicker Daniel let out – in spite of himself, Jack was sure. The General rounded the corner, accompanied by Doc Frasier. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"

* * *

A thousand years ago, his host had gone by the name Adegoke, and could never have imagined the power Olokun would gather to himself as a System Lord. Never more than a minor one, but he would change that.

_Not when captured by the Tau'ri._

The room they had locked him in was drab and utterly bare, little more than a box made of a smooth, rock-like material that did not yield to the blow of a fist. It might, should he use Goa'uld strength, but the likelihood of incurring damage to his host body was high, and wasting time on healing might deprive him of a prime opportunity. And hands, with their ability to manipulate the world around them, were a tool greater than any other.

The situation as it stood was little more than a temporary inconvenience; for all their trouble to the System Lords, the Tau'ri were a primitive race. No, it was the Tok'ra that would require . . . delicate handling.

The Tok'ra would torture the body to pull answers from the symbiote, and Olokun would not be able to leave his host under the watchful eye of other Goa'uld. Escape must be carried out from the Tau'ri homeworld. And with their protective iris over the Stargate, he could expect no reinforcements from his Jaffa.

Still, they were careless enough in their methods of imprisonment.

"_Shol'va_," Olokun hissed at the Jaffa who had chained him, eyes flaring at the gold symbol of servitude to Apophis displayed on the traitor's forehead. Even shoved to the far reaches of the galaxy, word of this great betrayal had reached him. That a First Prime could harbor such blasphemous faults that would lead to the downfall of a God . . .

The Jaffa didn't blink, utterly impassive, circling behind him and out of Olokun's line of sight. _Well-trained, if traitorous._ Olokun sneered; any other reaction was more acknowledgment than this filth deserved. He rattled the metal bracelets chaining him to the seat they had brought in. One of his two guards eyed him distrustfully, readjusting his grip on the weapon he held. _Attached to him by a strap. Provides a hindrance in close-quarters combat._ It was the move of a _chal'tii_ to so blatantly telegraph unease.

The twitch of a wrist, the bunching of muscles in his forearm, would see him free –

The door opened.

First through the opening was a Tau'ri female who jangled against _his_ nerves, rather than his host's. Olokun narrowed the man's eyes, staring – after so many centuries, the body was as much his as it had been the man Adegoke's. Golden hair, cropped short, of medium stature, well-curved, with fair skin and eyes the color of the event horizon. Nothing spectacular, nor a great beauty like those hosts favored by the female of his species. But. _She was a host. I do not recognize her._ A minor System Lord, then, or perhaps a Tok'ra.

Another Tau'ri, male, one that like the Jaffa, he easily identified. _This_ one had killed his own First Prime with a staff-blast, allowing the _shol'va_ to corner him. "_Ha'taaka_."

"Back atcha," the Tau'ri grinned, completely undisturbed by his wrath.

Olokun's fury grew. They thought to imprison _him,_ the lord of death, and chain him like common chattel for them to mock? _I will enjoy killing this one._

Another woman, pushing before her a wheeled tank filled with clear water. _Symbiote tank._ So the Tau'ri planned to free his host of him. But there were no hand devices that he could see, and none except the blonde woman capable of wielding them. None of the primitive Tau'ri devices that he'd heard rumors of, spreading through his Jaffa – not even a knife, to cut him out of Adegoke's body.

Just another Tau'ri with pages of paper, slipping through the door before it was barred from the outside. They clumped together behind his watchful guards, voices hissing and muttering but indistinguishable to him no matter how he strained his host's ears.

_A thousand years in this body, and they believe there is still a host left to save?_ The mind simmering below his thoughts was silent more often than not; that it was still sane after this long a sign of Olokun's mercy to his people.

The group scattered, all taking up positions around the guards and just as armed. Olokun relaxed against the thin metal chair, readying himself for the coming confrontation.

And the last Tau'ri, clearly a scholar, began to speak. _"Regna terrae, cantate Deo, salite domino. Que ferter super celem -"_

The slightest of tingles shivered his spine, but nothing more. The Tau'ri continued to read in a strong voice, but Olokun's uncertainty faded as, after long moments, nothing happened.

"_. . . tribute virtutem deo. __Exorcisamus te, omnes in mundus spiritus, omnes satanica potestas, omnes incursio infernales adversarii, omnes legio, omnes congregatio, et sectat deabolico -"_

The _shol'va _Teal'c was behind him, unmoving. The blonde woman was frowning heavily, and their leader's face had drawn into a scowl, his weapon rising higher as Olokun sat undisturbed. The System Lord locked eyes with the belligerent Tau'ri, strange words humming in his ears to no effect.

"It does not appear to be working, O'Neill," the Jaffa murmured, voice pitched to carry below the flow of words.

"_Vade satana inventor et magister omnes velacio. Hostis humare salutis humiliare potente -"_

"Yeah, I can see that," the one called O'Neill snapped.

Olokun laughed, long and deeply, though it did not ease the continuous chant. _Shak'ti'qua?"_

There was no answer, but he didn't expect one. It was clear that whatever experiment the Tau'ri had thought to try on him was failing.

"_Ipse tribuet virtutem et fortitudenem lebe suae benedictus deus gloria patri."_ The young Tau'ri whose voice had been filling the room for many minutes fell silent at last.

"Keep going, Daniel," O'Neill snapped. No one moved.

"That's the end of it," was the response. Olokun broke gazes with O'Neill to give his attention to the scholar, a crease forming between his brows as his mouth moved silently over meaningless words. "That's the entire ritual, Jack."

"But that doesn't make any sense," the blonde woman interrupted. "It was working before, we all saw it."

_Not on me._ Which made him wonder – who had they tested this on, to believe that it would succeed now? And the surprise in their bodies was genuine. So this – these words – were supposed to separate host from symbiote, and he was mysteriously immune.

The young Tau'ri was shuffling through papers, frowning and chewing his lip in puzzlement. "It's the exact ritual Sam left me."

O'Neill's voice rose. "Teal'c?"

"My _prim'ta_ was initially disturbed, but the sensation soon eased."

"It _should_ work," the young Tau'ri male – Daniel? – insisted. "Maybe there was something with the pronunciation -"

"Great." O'Neill's weapon lowered, animosity in every line of his body. Olokun met calculating brown eyes and smiled. O'Neill growled. "When the Tok'ra hear about this, they'll want to move him immediately." The others, including the guards, retreated toward the door. Olokun caught O'Neill's final words as they exited, leaving him chained to the chair in the middle of the room. "Call Davis."

The sound of sliding metal barring his prison shut echoed in the empty room.

_Foolish._

Olokun tested the links once more, satisfied that they would snap with little effort and no damage to his host body. The Tau'ri had left him little, but he could make weapons from what he had easily enough.

_You will not keep me here for long. _

* * *

Sam scooped up the last of his vanilla ice cream, cutting the thickness of chocolate mousse against his tastebuds, and eyed Dean's plate with satisfaction. The beets hadn't gone over well – hadn't gone over at _all –_ but the lure of a steakhouse was enough to prompt his brother's appetite and up the amount of protein he consumed by a significant margin.

Warm lighting, booths cushioned in cloth rather than vinyl, and enough room for him to slouch comfortably beneath the table put _Chili's Grill & Bar_ on his list of 'return-if-possible's. Conversation churned lightly around them, amiable atmosphere permeating their booth in the corner of the room and brightening Sam's mood considerably. _Helps that Dean doesn't look like he's going to fall over when he tries to stand up._

Iron and protein and electrolytes, and his brother was steadier on his feet if not fully back on top of his game. Still tired, though, if the hand he rubbed over his eyes was any indication. _Maybe I can convince him to go to bed early._ The good, heavy meal and the warmth of the room were already conspiring to weight green eyes with drowsiness.

Sam ran white cloth over his face, catching the smirk Dean sent his way. And then, he saw the massive chocolate smears that transferred from his skin to the napkin, and glared. "Dude!"

"What?"

Sam could feel heat crawling up his face, and Dean's innocent act was betrayed by the gleam in wicked eyes. "You could have told me," he waved the stained napkin, fighting his blush back.

That got a cackle in response, and the waving of his brother's camera-phone. Sam knew for a fact Dean hadn't used it. But oh, _yeah,_ the older Winchester was feeling better. Sam gritted his teeth, hiding the smile that wanted to emerge. "You're a friggin' jerk."

Settling further into the booth's padded bench, Dean chuckled.

Sam flicked a soggy crumb at him; it fell flat, skittering over the glossy tabletop before coming to a rolling halt, fat inches away from his brother's hand.

Dean raised a brow at him, not quite suppressing his smirk. Green eyes strayed to the curvaceous form of a passing waitress, then snapped back to him. "So. Any leads on a new gig?"

"You're kidding." Sam stared at his brother. Dean knew as well as he did that unless forced, they never hunted if they weren't at one hundred percent. The risks not only to their own lives but those of the innocents they hoped to save weren't worth chancing that exhaustion or an incompletely healed injury wouldn't cost them at a critical moment. _And Dean's not one hundred percent, there's no way._

His brother met his eyes evenly. "Not now. In like a week or so."

_Yeah, a week would do it._ A week was probably overkill, in fact, but that Dean had been so lenient told Sam his brother had thought he'd push for more if it came to a knock-down, drag-out fight. "Well, then we've got time to look, right?"

Dean shrugged, making conversation more than anything else. "Spend some time in town, maybe. Fill out those credit-card applications, sort out the mess with -" one hand flapped, encompassing _Stanford_ and _MIT_ and _Presidential pardons_ in a single movement. "Everything."

"Sleep," Sam muttered, mind on more immediate issues. He hadn't gotten enough in the past three days, between losing and tracking down Dean, killing the djinn, and they'd spent today in cleanup and travel . . .

Under the gentle lamplight illuminating their booth, the smudges beneath Dean's eyes deepened. "Yeah."

_Should probably get the check the next time the waitress comes around._ He wasn't sure, but Sam thought it likely Aaron Neumann would be paying for this meal.

Into the silence, a cell phone rang, blaring heavy rock across the booth. _Great._ Sam tensed, unhappy. He'd just gotten his brother relaxed enough that suggesting an early night would probably have gone with only the hitch of Dean's grumbling.

Dean held the phone up, frowning at the number, and flipped it open. "Hello?"

* * *

"When do you think they'll be here?"

_I hope Dad can stall the High Council for a little longer._ Sam took another look at the clock in Daniel's office, twisting a little as she stretched out her back. _0630. _The on-base personnel housing wasn't awful, but it was a far cry from the SGC's VIP rooms. She was pretty sure that Colonel O'Neill had gone home, and that Daniel hadn't, after the failed exorcism. Teal'c was taking a few hours for _kel'no'reem_ in his quarters.

"Dean said they were about twelve hours out," Daniel repeated, glancing up from his computer to give her a small smile. Sam shook her head with a smile, and the archaeologist continued. "They were going to drive through the night to get here, so there wouldn't be as much traffic. Hopefully."

"And they couldn't take a plane why?" In the corner, Colonel O'Neill was fiddling with a statuette the length of his hand, carved from bright turquoise, with some . . . _highly exaggerated_ bodily features.

The archaeologist rolled his eyes, tapping a few keys as he stood from behind his desk. "Because they have some – specialized equipment – that wouldn't make it through security," he answered. She wiggled on her chair, finger marking her place in the text SG-1's linguist had asked her to look through.

"Guns," the Colonel muttered, relinquishing the figurine to Daniel's patiently outstretched hand. He wandered over to the bookshelf, one finger running along the spines stacked there, as he ambled the length of the office. "We could have given them guns."

"Not guns compatible with their ammunition," Sam pointed out. _Silver rounds crafted for a .45 wouldn't exactly be useful for a P-90 or M-16. _

"I still don't see why they couldn't have just told you what was wrong over the phone," Jack groused. Sam's eyes followed him as he shifted toward the large table occupying the center of the room, overrun with books and artifacts and more than a little dirt from various planets.

"Because I went over it with Sam – Winchester," Daniel clarified, plucking a ceremonial dagger from Jack's line of sight and shutting it in a desk drawer. "It wasn't the ritual, it wasn't the meter or the pronunciation or the content. And it _should_ work – they've used it before, apparently."

Sam shivered. _On . . . demons. Like we don't have enough problems off-world without finding out that hellspawn are real?_ "Did they have any ideas about what went wrong?"

Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose, leaning against his office table. "Sam said it might be because Goa'uld are actual physical entities. Mostly, the ritual is used on demons, which are incorporeal. They've got exorcism rituals from a dozen religions that work, and this one was working initially, so we'll see what happens when they get here. I'm just looking up the roots of the one they left me, to see if there's another variation I can try."

"Before the High Council decides Jacob's stalled long enough and General Hammond has to let them take His Snakiness to Vorash," the Colonel muttered.

Sam frowned, tugging a sticky-note free of its pad to mark her spot. "Apparently their operative in Olokun's forces – um, Tiernan is the host and Marsil is the symbiote – was able to gather data on Jaffa movements and strength, which indicate that he's getting in position to strike out at the upper System Lords. But Olokun hasn't told his plans to anyone. And they want to know what advantage he has that he'd try to take down someone with the equivalent of Ra's power, roughly."

"They're probably afraid it's the time-travel device," Daniel muttered.

_God, I hope not._ She was an astrophysicist, and since they had accidentally activated a wormhole through a solar flare and gotten themselves sent back to 1969, she'd taken a closer look at what was known of time-travel through Einstein's theories and the space-time continuum. "If they find out -"

_Rrrring._

Daniel reached for the receiver, and Sam bit back the rest of her statement.

"Yeah, he's right here."

Jack's brows went up, and the archaeologist nodded, beckoning.

Taking the receiver, the Colonel spoke into the phone. "O'Neill." He paused, a look of satisfaction coming over his face. "Good. No, I'll be right up." The phone clattered into its cradle, and the leader of SG-1 gave them a smug smile. "Guess who's topside?"

* * *

Dean watched Sam walking back toward the parked Impala, within sight but far out of earshot of the front gate and kiosk to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. _Not out of range of their surveillance equipment, though._ Cameras were stationed regularly, at the fence-posts, he would bet, with long-distance mikes as well; all monitored constantly. _Wonder how they changed the system since we broke in?_ He smirked.

"They said they'd get O'Neill up here to see us through."

Dean settled against the Impala's hood, willing to wait. For a little while, anyway. "Good. No way we'd be able to bring in any of our gear through the front door."

Sam gave a half-laugh, yawning and stretching his arms over his head. He'd slept the ten hours it had taken them to get here. _Still looks tired._ "Yeah, no kidding."

At least he seemed to have woken up on the right side of the Impala, for once – the fight they'd had about coming nine hundred miles ameliorated a little by the immediacy of the situation. _At least, the way Paul explained it._ Dean had cut him off halfway through a way-too-detailed description of inter-planetary politics.

"Daniel said he did the exorcism exactly as I left it." Sam was eyeing the chain-link fence and perimeter guards disappearing into the shadows of the trees coating Cheyenne Mountain.

_Not this again. _"He can't have, if it didn't work."

"I went over it with him," Sam muttered, hands delving into his pockets and shoulders shrugging, resettling his jacket against the thin breeze. "I mean, his pronunciation was a little different, but that shouldn't have had any effect – it's just like an accent. Doesn't change the meaning of the words or the intent behind them."

Dean groaned. _If I find out I had to drive nine hundred miles because of the difference between church-Latin and academic-Latin, I swear I'm gonna –_

The gates were opening, and someone was coming their way. "Sam, twelve o'clock."

They were shoulder-to-shoulder, waiting, when O'Neill came within speaking distance. "Nice ride."

_Olive branch? Screw that._ Not when these guys had the power to take away problems like the Feds, or could hold Sam's dream of going back to school over them, just to make the Winchesters jump every time they snapped their fingers. Dean wasn't blind – and he had the feeling their pardons and re-admissions to school didn't come without a hell of a lot of strings attached. "You gonna let us in or what?"

"Some reason you couldn't just drive up to the gate?" O'Neill glanced between them.

Dean snorted; Sam snickered.

They split, Sam rounding the hood to slip into shotgun, Dean continuing along the driver's side of the Impala to the trunk. Cracking it open, he lifted the false bottom and said dryly, "I have the feeling your guys might have stopped us. Just a hunch." _And I'd rather not get shot for trying to sneak this in._

O'Neill blinked at the array of guns and canisters filled with salt and gasoline and holy water, dozens of items meticulously cleaned and packed away. "It's like _The Hitchhiker_ all over again."

Dean let the slam of the trunk do his talking for him, sparing a hand to give the Impala a consoling pat on his way to the driver's seat. _Asshole. _"Backseat," he ordered O'Neill with the jerk of a thumb.

Getting through the front gate went remarkably smoothly with a Colonel in the back, though the looks O'Neill _didn't_ get indicated he was a little higher on Cheyenne's food chain than Dean had assumed. From the worried purse to his lips, Sam noticed it too.

Corridors mysteriously cleared before them as O'Neill led the way deeper into the Mountain, past various offices dedicated to the inner workings of NORAD, none of which the Winchesters should have been able to just _walk by._ They weren't even patted down or made to go through metal detectors; Dean had a gun and two knives secreted away, Sam the same, and they were just waved through. No one even tried to check the duffle of supplies Dean had slung over one shoulder. _What the hell. _

The only holdup came on Level 11.

"Yeah, they definitely remember you," Sam grinned, looking around at the guards who had suddenly snapped to attention. The officer behind the desk glared his way; Dean sneered right back.

"Sir," the man snapped, lips thinning under the force of his displeasure. "This is the man who -"

"I know, Lieutenant Poletti," O'Neill answered, palm slapping against the chest-high desk doubling as a barrier as he walked by, flashing his ID. "They're with me."

_No way he's going to take that for an answer._

But that was precisely what happened; the stuffy guard backed down immediately, pissed off but unable to say much of anything in the face of O'Neill's casual disregard. Dean's eyes narrowed on the Colonel's back as he followed the man into the elevator. _Used to having people fall in line with what he says, no matter what. _Add to that the unconscious way O'Neill carried himself, and Dean knew that he was looking at more than just Air Force. Special Forces, of some kind, definitely – maybe even Black Ops.

"Holy crap," Sam mouthed, surprise in blue-green eyes, before O'Neill turned.

_You said it, little brother._ Even Dad hadn't been that – arrogant? _Only word for it._

The odd silence that reigned in elevators across the country attacked, leaving them in an awkward quiet. Sam shifted his grip on the reference books he carried; exorcisms in various religions that they could try, just in case. Dean shook his head over the way the numbers on the elevator's display increased as the floor dropped beneath his feet.

They were at sixteen – _holding cells,_ Dean remembered – before the car came to a halt. He took point, hearing Sam start, "So where's -"

Red lights exploded, alarms searingly loud in his ears.

Dean flinched in shock, yelling over the sudden noise, "What the hell is that?"

Between screaming electronic whoops, an impersonal voice beamed across the loudspeakers, answering his question. _"Unscheduled off-world activation."_

**

* * *

**

**A/N: **Translations of the Goa'uld, courtesy the Wiki page on the Goa'uld language. _Chili's Grill & Bar_ is, according to the , in Cedar Rapids, but I've never been there, so everything but the name is fictitious. And the exorcism above? Painstaking re-piecing of the Latin from the DVDs of 'Phantom Traveller' and 'Devil's Trap' (I kept getting distracted by Dean's intensity in the latter, so that took some _serious_ concentration, plus JP's Latin-reading accent is waaay different from mine, so goodbye, all my Latin knowledge) and some helpful and not-so-helpful SuperWiki transcripts.

_Shol'va_ – traitor; also, 'heretic', as to betray the Goa'uld is to betray one's god.

_Chal'tii_ – untrained warrior

_Ha'taaka_ – vile one

_Shak'ti'qua_ – What do you think you are doing?

_Prim'ta_ – larval Goa'uld, which resides in a womb-like stomach pouch of a Jaffa and acts as the Jaffa's immune system.


	3. Chapter 3

_Right on time._

The High Council would demand to see Selmac/Jacob, and they and Aldwin/Wotan would be occupied long enough for Marsil to accomplish his mission.

Quickening their steps, he shoved the internal murmur of objections to the side; his host was still holding firm to Tok'ra beliefs and loyalties. _'They abandoned us!'_ he spat at Tiernan.

_'We were in deep cover,'_ his host argued back. _'We knew they couldn't help us if something went wrong.'_

Waiting for the elevator, Marsil maintained full control over their body, as he had for the weeks since their torture. Tiernan had refused to give in, but Marsil had no longer been able to withstand the agony.

_"No, please, no more," he begged, Tiernan resting in the back of his mind and too tired to protest. _

_Lord Olokun lowered the Kara Kesh, eyes bright white. The abrupt cessation of pain left them stupid with relief, unable to do anything but sag to cool stone. And listen. "You will join me, then? Tell me all of the secrets of the Tok'ra, of your mission here?"_

_Marsil licked his lips with a dry tongue, tasting sweat and crusted blood. _'No,'_ Tiernan panted within their mind. _'You can't.'_ For the first time in centuries, he ignored his host, gripping Tiernan's brain firmly and refusing to relinquish any power to the mind now thrashing beneath his own. He could save them both; the High Council surely would not. The word was harsh in a throat torn from screaming. "Yes." _

And Lord Olokun himself had nursed them back to health, showing a care foreign to Marsil except from his host's memory of childhood and family. Marsil understood now – he was one of the Lord's favored, loved by their God as few were. He had brought that pain upon himself through his resistance, but the Lord had shown him mercy, and forgiven.

_'We owe Lord Olokun our lives, loyalty, and love,' _he told Tiernan. _'He delivered us from pain.'_

_'No,'_ his host insisted. Tiernan had stopped trying to take his body back from Marsil in the first week, as they healed and he learned it was impossible. _'No, Marsil, he was the one torturing us, please listen to me -'_

_'That was our betrayal.'_ The elevator doors opened, a gust of air from the ventilation system disguising his shudder at the memory. Marsil shut away Tiernan's pleading. How could it be that after so long, his host still could not see the truth? The Tok'ra had sacrificed them, casting them adrift into the galaxy and only Lord Olokun's benevolence had saved them from a horrible death. By rights, he shouldn't have forgiven them for their betrayal, but the Lord had shown mercy.

And now, they would repay the debt by freeing him.

_'Marsil, please,'_ Tiernan shoved forward, though his host could not manage to wrest control from him. Their steps did not waver as they exited the elevator, moving toward the holding cells. _'He's blinded you to the truth, Marsil, twisted your mind -'_

_'No,'_ and Marsil knew the truth of this utterly. _'No, he opened my eyes. I can finally see clearly.'_

And with a twisting _slam_ of neurons, he shoved Tiernan into unconsciousness. There was no time to argue with his host, or try to persuade him to see the things Marsil finally, _finally_ could. _Later,_ he promised the silence in the back of his mind that was Tiernan. They were part of each other, had been for centuries, and to be at odds like this was disconcerting to both – but he would show Tiernan soon, make him see the reality.

"Can I help you, sir?" One of the two Tau'ri guards positioned outside Lord Olokun's cell approached, helpful and polite. The klaxons had faded to silence while they were in the elevator, alarms quieting as the wormhole deactivated.

Marsil turned Tiernan's lips upward in a smile that would never reach his eyes. "No, I don't think you can." And he lashed out, striking the Tau'ri hard across the jaw. The man's head rebounded off cement and he dropped like a stone. The second guard had time enough to bring his weapon to bear before Marsil locked an arm around his neck, choking air from the man's brain long enough that the darkness would hold him until the former Tok'ra was finished.

Fingers reaching out, he quickly found the communication devices favored by the SGC, removing them, and the keys held by the second guard allowed him access to the holding cell.

Inside, Lord Olokun stood waiting, broken handcuffs dangling short lengths of chain from each wrist.

Marsil sank to his knees, feeling the chill of concrete through his leggings. "My Lord."

"You have done well, my child." A hand settled gently on his bowed head, petting his hair, and Marsil leaned into the benevolent touch. "Come, we have much to do."

Locking the guards in the now-empty cell took mere moments, and then they were descending the stairs deeper into the SGC, headed for the Control Room. Lord Olokun remained shadowed behind him as they progressed, sinking into the small alcove beneath winding stairs leading up to the SGC's Briefing Room as they entered the Control Room.

The _Chappa'ai _was silent now, from whatever use it had seen minutes ago. Marsil did not look back as he approached the Tau'ri sitting at the controls, knowing his time was short. _They will open the 'Gate to Ile Ife, and we will be free._

* * *

"Of course." General Hammond tightened his grip on the frustration that was rising in the back of his throat. He settled back in his chair, searching for some way to delay the inevitable.

Garshaw inclined her head, placated for the first time since her arrival minutes ago. "I ask that you allow me to remove Olokun immediately to Vorash. You have had ample time to attempt removal of the Goa'uld from its host. Allow our scientists the same courtesy."

It wasn't a request, no matter how it was phrased. _Better get Dr. Jackson up here, he might be able to buy us some time to see if the Winchesters have more success._

Helpless irritation filled him; the glance Jacob cast him was mixed anger and apology. The Earth-Tok'ra Alliance was invaluable to the SGC, at least in theory – but the Tok'ra made it common practice to test the outer bounds of the treaty. _But there's nothing I can do. Not at the moment._ Rising from the Briefing Room table, he moved to his office, and the phone there.

_Whirrrrr. Clunk._

He knew that sound. Hammond turned to the five-inch thick glass looking down into the 'Gateroom. "There aren't any teams scheduled to go off-world now," he muttered, drawing nearer the window. The Stargate's inner ring continued to spin, a blur of silver naqahdah.

_Clunk._

Sergeant Harriman's voice, faithfully calling out each chevron encoded, was absent. _The iris is wide open._ And the 'Gateroom was completely deserted.

"General?"

"That's an outgoing wormhole," Jacob's voice rose over Garshaw's questioning murmur.

"Something's wrong." George wasted no time getting to his office – but the call down to the Control Room went unanswered. "Dammit!" A hit to the button just inside his office door sent the klaxons blaring – but as he raced to the window, he could see the blast doors were firmly sealed, and access to the stairs leading to the Control Room below the Briefing Room was blocked.

_Whirrrrr. Clunk._

"What is going on?" Vinyl-like silks swished, a haze of purple and blue, as Garshaw stalked to the window, staring at the Stargate as the event horizon burst to life.

George could hear the alarms screaming; knew the base was scrambling to the 'Gateroom – and as the blast doors opened, he knew they would be too late.

"Olokun," Jacob snarled, eyes flashing at the black-skinned man who entered the 'Gateroom in a swirl of gold and white cloth.

_No._ He would be writing letters of regret and condolences to families today – because for the System Lord to have been able to escape, his people had died. No matter that the Goa'uld hadn't entered the wormhole yet – Hammond was locked in the Briefing Room with the Tok'ra and unable to stop the scene playing out before their eyes.

"How could he have dialed out?" Jacob's face was twisted in confusion. "Only the operators know how to work the Control Room computers, right? It's nothing like a normal DHD."

"Easily enough," George said bitterly, watching as the man stalked on sandaled feet up the ramp. "Holding a weapon on any of my personnel – they might have done it to delay him, or give themselves a chance to take him down."

Garshaw drew in a deep breath, as if preparing to strike a fatal blow. "Or he had help."

Outrage wiped any kind of reasonable thought from his mind; Hammond struggled to maintain his composure. And failed. "None of my people would aid a Goa'uld!"

"Of course not, General." The leader of the Tok'ra laid a calming hand on his arm. "But they might be under the influence of some other agent."

_Drugs, like Niirti or Hathor – _"We received no information from the Tok'ra that Olokun had chemical weapons," he snapped back. _We barely received any information on Olokun's capabilities at _all. _If it wasn't for Dr. Jackson and Teal'c – _

Jacob's surprise interrupted. "What the hell?"

On the ramp, a mere arm's length from the event horizon, Olokun had frozen. As they watched, he backed up three steps, then attempted to approach the Stargate once more – and slammed up against a barrier, unable to move closer than three feet to shimmering blue.

"He's trapped," Jacob muttered, as the System Lord threw himself at the wormhole to no avail. Confined to a section of the ramp, Olokun's movements were growing wilder as an invisible barrier seemed to block his steps in every direction. General Carter's eyes widened, then, as a second figure passed through the blast doors to enter the 'Gateroom. "Tiernan?"

* * *

Sam's fingers darted across the buttons on the control pad, punching in numbers to override the lock on the system. A green light flashed; she grinned. "Got it!"

Daniel darted into the Control Room behind Teal'c, racing to the first form slumped over a console, searching the Airman's neck for a pulse. _Alive. Thank gods. _"'Zat?"

"Looks like it." Sam was already easing Sergeant Harriman from the main dialing computer; it would be a good fifteen minutes before any of the three personnel regained consciousness. "Teal'c, can you get the hatch to the Briefing Room?"

The Jaffa was already moving.

"Do we know where Jack and the Winchesters are?" Daniel had his eyes on Olokun, standing impassively before the wormhole. He frowned, leaning over Sam's shoulder to glance between her furious typing and the scene in the 'Gateroom.

"He's locked the iris open," she grumbled, the screen blanking for a moment and then reverting to line after line of shifting programming code. "It's going to take me hours to untangle this -"

"Why isn't he moving?" Daniel frowned, watching as the System Lord backed away and tried to reach the event horizon once more. "It's like he's -" Black lines, fierce and precise and hidden in the shadows under the ramp, caught his eye. "The Key of Solomon!"

Boots clattered on the stairs behind them; peering over his shoulder, Daniel saw first Teal'c, then General Hammond, Jacob, and Garshaw emerge from the Briefing Room, one level directly above.

"While he's trapped there, we can't dial out." Sam's eyes were wide as she surveyed the situation. "He'll be vaporized by the opening event horizon."

"At least we know it works," Daniel offered. Sam stared at him; he grinned. "Maybe -"

"Major Carter." General Hammond came to a halt on Sam's other side. "Close down the Stargate."

"I can't, sir," the astrophysicist was intent on the computer. "Whoever dialed out locked the computer down and tangled the coding routes leading into the program. The automatic shutdown at thirty-eight minutes will happen before I can hack my way back through the system."

"Can you close the iris?" Jacob was leaning over an empty console, peering through the glass at the 'Gate.

"No – it's a separate program, but it's been rerouted so that -"

"Should we pull the plug?" Hammond's face was fierce.

Daniel blinked, conscious of Garshaw, one of the most powerful members of the Tok'ra High Council, quietly watching from her position at the base of the stairs.

"Aside from the power drain, there's no immediate need, sir," Sam answered.

_And the naqahdah reactor can easily offset the energy pulled by the 'Gate._ Daniel's lips pursed. Superconductor or not, the Stargate required a massive amount of power to generate a wormhole across the galaxy.

Sam never looked up from the program she was coaxing back to life. "Olokun appears to be effectively immobilized for the moment. There are no teams scheduled to return for another six hours, and none departing for off-world missions until tomorrow."

Jacob thumbed the button controlling the microphone, Selmac's voice reverberating through the 'Gateroom. "Tiernan. Return to the -"

A zat trilled, electricity arcing from the sleek weapon to short out the speaker closest to the Control Room window. Daniel flinched back from the shower of sparks that erupted, though they were on the opposite side of the glass.

_What?_ Looking now, Daniel could see the operative who had been smuggled into Olokun's forces, statue-still by the blast doors leading out in to the corridor, holding a zat high with more fury on his face than he'd ever seen a Tok'ra display.

Tinny and strung high with adrenaline, the Tok'ra's voice filtered back through the microphones scattered through the 'Gateroom. _"I no longer listen to your precious High Council, Selmac! Enter if you dare!" _

Garshaw stiffened. "He has betrayed us."

A new voice broke the tension with a derisive snort. "'Enter if you dare'? You've gotta be kidding me."

* * *

The words were a bare whisper. "Three, two, one -"

A nod from Dean had him pushing the final button on the override sequence; his brother took point as the blast doors to the room housing the Stargate slid open. Sam saw his target whirl, weapon coming up.

_Fweeew!_

Electricity arced blue-white across the room to fizzle over the man's skin; he dropped without a grunt. _One shot, and they're unconscious,_ Sam could still hear O'Neill's voice echoing in his head. _Two will kill, mostly, but sometimes it doesn't. Three disintegrates. _At which point the target was irretrievably dead.

"Awesome," Dean breathed, grinning at the alien weapon Colonel O'Neill had grumpily thrust at them.

The possessed guy stomping across metal grating glared at them from where he was trapped inside the Key of Solomon.

"One down, two to go," Sam commented, hefting the zat gun consideringly. _Okay, yeah, that was cool._ Dean was already checking the Tok'ra, his own gun in hand; no matter how nice it was to have a weapon that could incapacitate rather than kill at a distance, they'd only had the zat gun for a total of ten minutes.

_When Dad said he was training us to be able to adapt to any kind of weapon, I don't think this is what he meant._

Sam pressed another button on the weapon, and it contracted immediately, shutting down with a low _hmmm_ of power disengaging. _Weird._

Dean had the metal canister of salt in-hand; Sam crossed to his brother, double-checking the plastic ties clamping their prisoner's hands and feet. "I think we have a bit of time, enough to circle the room." Dean dumped their duffle to the cement floor as he unscrewed the cap on the rocksalt. "Go _deiseal_. I'll take _tauthal_."

Typical.

Sam rooted out the compass, dragging out a nubbin of chalk at the same time. He cast the Stargate a wary glance, sneaking a peek at the window where they were being carefully watched. It was simple enough to find magnetic north and then adjust for true, scribbling a mark on the cement wall. Dean's fears about the energy being pulled by the massive ring and its rippling blue surface disrupting the localized electromagnetic fields and screwing with the compass – something his brother had muttered unhappily about when they realized they'd have to go in – proved luckily unfounded.

The room was large enough that he was only halfway around when Dean finished salting the doors and started his own protective circle of the room; on the ramp the possessed man raged across the ramp, foreign words harsh on Sam's ears. Completing the circuit back at the _N_ chalked on the wall, Sam broke away from the perimeter of the room, heading back toward the duffle. Poking through, he found the journal and had flipped to the exorcism they needed by the time his brother finished.

"You ready?"

Sam passed the journal to Dean, nodding. "Yeah."

They'd both had the core exorcism memorized since the run-in with Meg at Bobby's; but his brother didn't trust himself to get it right when they weren't just thrust into an emergency. _Too much time to think about it, I guess._ Where Dean ran on uncannily accurate instinct, Sam needed to think every move through.

He skirted the edge of the ramp, climbing up the short ladder to insert himself between the wormhole and the edge of the Key of Solomon. _I really don't want to give Dean the chance to play with this thing._ At least until they were done.

His brother clomped up the ramp until he was toeing the edge of the Key opposite Sam; the slight dip of spiky hair told Sam he was ready.

Eyes a brilliant white, the possessed man glared from him to the older Winchester and back again. The room around them was silent and cold.

Sam took a deep breath, locking gazes with Dean. _"Regna terrae, cantate Deo, salite domino. Que ferter super celem -"_

The body ceased pacing the inner edge of the Key, going suddenly rigid. They kept going, enunciating each word with purposeful emphasis. _tribute virtutem deo. __Exorcisamus te, omnes in mundus spiritus, omnes satanica potestas, omnes incursio infernales adversarii, omnes legio, omnes congregatio, et sectat deabolico -"_

The man's spine arched, a scream tearing from his throat that had Sam flinching. _"Kegalo!"_

There was a beat of silence at the pained shout.

Dean didn't falter. "Keep going."

Another breath had them chanting in unison once more. _"Vade satana inventor et magister omnes velacio. Hostis humare salutis humiliare potente mani dei."_

There was something in the air, tingling over his skin in a wave that brushed over his face almost like wind, but didn't disturb the salt lines at the doors. He swallowed. _"Contremisce et effuge. Invocato a nobis sancto et terribile nomine. Quem inferi tremen. Ad insidiis diaboli liber ad nos domine ut ecclesiam tuum securi tibi faciet -"_

The man slammed to metal grating, thrashing hard. The ramp trembled under Sam's sneakers, and the man shrieked. _"Na'noweia si'taia! Yõ!"_

They couldn't stop. They couldn't. Sam could hear Dean's voice rising, audible over the awful sounds of pain the man was making, and pitched his words to match, overcome by the rhythm and unable to slow or halt if he tried. _"- libertate servire, terrogamos audi nos. Ut iminicos, sentae ecclesiae, terrogamos audi nos -"_

It was a steady vibration over his body now, the power gathering in the air – it had seized hold of his voicebox and Sam could see it in Dean's eyes, knew his own must reflect the merciless glint that would _not be denied._

"_- ipse tribuet virtutem et fortitudenem lebe suae benedictus deus gloria patri!"_

There was a silent rush across the room, energy being sucked into the Key, circling the figure contorting on the ramp. Sam could feel strength being pulled from him as the vibration rumbled across his skin, implosion imminent.

And then the energy disappeared.

The man's jaw sagged wide, leaving Sam braced and ready for the terrible scream that would accompany the demon's expulsion.

It never came.

Instead, the dark column of his throat writhed, desperate choking noises bouncing off concrete walls. _Oh my God._

"Don't move!"

Toes breaching the Key, Sam glared. "Dean, he's dying -"

"_Don't_," his brother snapped, one hand upraised. The journal sat, closed and safely out of the way, on the edge of the ramp. "It's working."

"Dean -"

The writhing body went limp against metal grating, head falling to the side. A rope of flesh, white and slimy, squirmed from between his lips.

Sam tried not to gag. "What _is_ that?"

"Ugh," Dean coughed, green eyes wide with disgust.

The thing raised its head and screeched. Quicker than thought, it launched itself in a coil of muscle through the air. Sam's breath caught in his throat.

Inches away from Dean, the creature hit the barrier of the Key and was slammed back onto the ramp. It reared up, snakelike, and hissed at his brother.

Behind the creature – _Goa'uld_, Sam corrected himself – the man stirred, a soft groan leaking from him. _We gotta get him out of there._ Dean had already grabbed up a metal box that would hold the alien parasite. "On three?"

Dean nodded, eyes on the undulating Goa'uld. "One. Two."

"Three!" Sam darted into the Key, snagging a hand under each of the former host's armpits and dragging him toward the wormhole, safely away from the parasite. Dean had thrown himself at the thing, and as he hauled the man upright Sam saw his brother catch the parasite mid-leap, slamming the lid of the box down.

Swaying on his feet, one arm over Sam's shoulders, the man stiffened against his side. He turned his head, meeting deep brown eyes that were surprisingly aware. "Hey," Sam shifted, letting the former host take more of his own weight. "Are you -"

_"Ha'shak."_

Unease curled up his spine, chased by restless adrenaline.

With surprising strength, the man was throwing them away from the Key and Goa'uld. _Not away,_ Sam's mind was stuck in overdrive. _Forward. _Toward the wormhole. _Falling!_

And his world was shockingly _blue_ and _freezing -_

* * *

"_Sam!_"

"Shhhh," Janet tried, reaching a hand out. _Nightmare, or reflex? _Green eyes snapped open before her palm could make contact with his forehead; she let her arm settle on the edge of the mattress as he jerked back against the Infirmary bed.

The monitors were bleeping in alarm, reflecting her patient's adrenaline spike as he finished waking completely.

A flick of his eyes took in the small, curtained off "room" in the Infirmary, along with the bed, IVs feeding into his right arm, and her white coat and stethoscope. As well as the tray of instruments visible through the gap in hanging white cloth that she'd entered through.

Recognition, faint but surprising; they'd never properly met. "You're -"

"I'm Doctor Frasier," Janet kept her voice quiet; tension, from the dream or the situation, was stringing his muscles taut in the bed. "You're in the SGC's Infirmary. You passed out after performing an exorcism on a System Lord."

His face closed up. "Where's my brother?"

God. _How do I –_

Winchester must have read something in her carefully blank countenance, because he was sitting upright, tugging at the IV lines and struggling out of bed.

_Damn it._ Janet shifted sideways to block him, but he slithered out from under his blankets with more speed than she would have given him credit for having, at the moment. "Dean. Sit back down and I'll tell you where your brother is."

"How about you get me my clothes," one hand tugged at the scrubs he'd been put into, "and tell me where my brother is, and I won't shoot O'Neill?" But his face was still starkly pale, freckles standing out harshly under the Infirmary lighting. He hadn't been unconscious long enough for the IVs to run more than a fourth of their contents into his veins.

Janet didn't say anything, but she helped him ease back against the bed when he swayed. _Stubborn. No wonder he and Jack don't get along. _Former Black Ops were used to having people do what they said, as they said it.

She kept her voice soothing, reading barely-hidden panic in his face. "From what I can tell, you collapsed from simple exhaustion, but your blood pressure was alarmingly low. That's why you're hooked up to a blood line as well as a general electrolyte solution."

Butt against the mattress, bare feet braced on the Infirmary's white linoleum, green eyes went to the lines. One ruby and the other clear, thin plastic tubing fed into the veins of his arm.

Janet picked up the chart she'd started for him. "You are exhibiting signs of significant blood loss, but the only recent injury I could find was the needle-mark on your neck." _And the bullet wound to the left shoulder, but that's healed._ Though the level of scarring indicated that it had been inflicted fairly recently, which was worrying enough.

He fingered the bruise absently, eyes roving what he could see of the Infirmary from his new vantage point. _Looking for an escape, and weapons or tools. _For a civilian, she felt like she was treating military. "Djinn. They, ah, string you up and bleed you out. Send you on a nice little supernatural acid trip, and feed on you slow."

_Acid trip? _Alarm skating through her, Janet's head came up. "Do you have any drugs in your system?"

Pure affront reflected in green eyes. "Hell no, Doc." Fingers were twisting in the thin blankets; he didn't bother to hide his growing suspicion. "Look, this is a fascinating conversation and all, but _where's my brother?_"

"P3X-972."

_Oh, no._ Bad timing. So of course there was only one person it could be.

Janet turned, and was greeted by the sight of Colonel O'Neill fiddling with several instruments on her tray, decidedly not looking at Winchester.

Her patient sputtered. "What the hell is that?"

Jack's eyes finally rose, locking on the younger man's. "Another planet."

**

* * *

**

**A/N: **In Scottish Gaelic, _deiseal_ means "sunwise", or as we would put it, clockwise (the two are the same in the Northern Hemisphere). It was considered a "prosperous course", and people would sometimes confer blessing by circling an area/person three times in the clockwise direction. The opposite course, _tuathal_, was "against the light", where you couldn't see your own shadow; by Scots lore, walking in this direction is considered bad luck. However, in Judaism circles are always walked counter-clockwise, and it's normal for processions in Eastern Orthodox Churches to move around the church in this direction. Here, there's a bit of ritualism to it, but Sam and Dean are just covering all their bases, so to speak.

**Translations of Goa'uld:** From the Wiki site.

_Kara Kesh_ – Goa'uld hand device, or ribbon device; made of brass or gold, it has caps for the fingers attached by wires to jewels resting on the palm and back of the hand. Can be used to cause intense, focused pain when centered on the forehead. Also can emit a wide blast of power to knock enemies backwards.

_Kegalo_ – Silence!

_Na'noweia si'taia_ – You are here to destroy me.

_Yõ _– Stop!

_Ha'shak_ – fool


End file.
